ISTANBUL UNIVERSITY,
CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT

“I humbly pray … that knowledge being now discharged of that venom which the serpent infused into it, and which makes the mind of man to swell, we may not be wise above measure and sobriety, but cultivate truth in charity… Lastly, I would address one general admonition to all; that they consider what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to others, or for profit, or fame, or power, or any of these inferior things; but for the benefit and use of life; and that they perfect and govern it in charity. For it was from the lust of power that the angels fell, from lust of knowledge that man fell; but of charity there can be no excess, neither did angel or man ever come in danger by it.” (F. Bacon, Preface, Inst. Magna: Bacon, IV [1901], 20 f.).

Renaissance Philosophy: 1400 - 1699

May 03, 1469 Italian political philosopher Niccolo dei Machiavelli was born.

October 27, 1469 Desiderius Erasmus of Rotterdam was born.

June 21, 1527 Italian political philosopher Niccolo dei Machiavelli died.

July 12, 1536 Desiderius Erasmus died.

January 05, 1548 Spanish philosopher Francisco Suarez was born at Granada.

January 22, 1561 Francis Bacon was born in England.

April 10, 1583 European jurist and political philosopher Hugo Grotius was born.

April 05, 1588 English philosopher Thomas Hobbes was born (prematurely, supposedly because his mother was frightened by news of the approach of the Spanish Armada).

March 31, 1596 French philosopher Rene Descartes was born at La Haye in Touraine, France.

September 25, 1617 Spanish philosopher Francisco Suarez died in Lisbon, Portugal.

May 31, 1621 Sir Francis Bacon thrown into Tower of London for one night.

June 19, 1623 Blaise Pascal was born.

April 08, 1626 Francis Bacon died.

January 08, 1632 Samuel von Pufendorf was born in Dorfchemnitz, Saxony.

August 29, 1632 John Locke was born. Locke was a British philosopher who is largely responsible for modern conceptions of empiricism.

November 24, 1632 Benedict de Spinoza was born.

July 01, 1646 German philosopher and mathematician Gottfried Leibniz was born in Leipzig.

February 11, 1650 French philosopher Rene Descartes died in Stockholm, Sweden.

January 23, 1656 Blaise Pascal published the first of his 18 "Provincial Lettres," most of which attacked the Jesuits.

August 19, 1662 Blaise Pascal died. Pascal was a French mathematician and and theologian who became well known for his work on hydrodynamics and probability.

February 21, 1677 Baruch Spinoza died.

January 24, 1679 German Englightenment philosopher Christian Wolff was born in Breslau, Silesia (now Wroclaw, Poland).

December 04, 1679 English philosopher Thomas Hobbes died.

March 12, 1685 Philosopher George Berkeley was born.

January 18, 1689 Charles de Montesquieu was born in Château de la Brède (near Bourdeaux, France).

October 13, 1694 Samuel von Pufendorf died in Berlin, Germany.

November 21, 1694 Voltaire was born. (read less)

ISTANBUL UNIVERSITY,
CLASSICAL PHILOLOGY & PHILOSOPHY DEPARTMENT

“I humbly pray … that knowledge being now discharged of that venom which the serpent infused into it, and which makes the mind of man to swell, we may not be wise above measure and sobriety, but cultivate truth in charity… Lastly, I would address one general admonition to all; that they consider what are the true ends of knowledge, and that they seek it not either for pleasure of the mind, or for contention, or for superiority to... (read more)